I’m not sure if it was the Wednesday night move or the anticipation leading up to the second season of Riverdale but the show had a huge rating spike.
In January, the show premiered on a Thursday night at 9pm, same time as Scandal. That is not the time you want to place a new show even if you believe it’s supposed to draw a completely different audience. Riverdale season two premiered on Wednesday, October 11 at 8pm with 2.3 million viewers and 0.8 rating among adults 18-49.
According to Deadline, this a 67% jump in viewers from the January premiere. Riverdale won the time-period for the CW in teens and posted the highest rated telecast in the teen demo in five years, since The Vampire Diaries on October 11, 2012. Riverdale also topped Arrow, which premiered in that time slot last year to only 1.9 million viewers.
The premiere of Dynasty only had 1.3 million viewers. Riverdale is clearly what we want while Dynasty, not so much. The CW could definitely use some variety in its programming. CW could almost be named the DC comics channel with how many comic shows air. Granted, Riverdale is based on the Archie comics but it definitely takes a lot of liberties and it’s not a superhero show.
I definitely enjoyed season one of Riverdale but there were some so-so episodes. By the end of the season, I was in love and I like the direction the writers are taking the show. The question is, can the Archie comics show keep up the high ratings?
